SPECULATION Should Luke Have Done It?

Luke lashing out in anger to protect those he loves is not out of character.
What's also in character is he doesn't actually do it.

So no, Luke shouldn't have killed him. THAT would be miles more "out of character" than anything in TLJ.

Luke has an anger/rage problem but is always able to overcome it. It's part of his character. It never made sense to me calling it out of character when it's very established it's what he would think about doing to save his loved ones.

 

"In a pure moment of instinct, I thought I could stop it. It passed like a fleeing shadow, and I was left in shame. As a consequence, and the last I saw I were the eyes of a frightened boy, who's Master had failed him." So, @SegNerd could you kill your nephew if you saw that?
Yoda says this: "always in motion is the future." "Through the force things you will see: the future, the past old friends long gone." "A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away…to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing."

 

People forget that Yoda/Kenobi pushed Luke to kill his own father in ROTJ so doing the same thing to his nephew is no different.

I guess my point is Luke got many mixed signals in the OT, so you can’t fault him for his actions years later. He saw his foster parents burned by the Empire and thought it was the same person who killed his father. Only to learn years later that WAS his father as Obiwan lied to him. He was pushed by the Last Jedi at that time (In ROTJ) to kill his father. I’m just saying it’s understandable that Luke had the instinct because that was essentially drilled in him in ROTJ by his 2 mentors.

The cycle kept repeating as wasn’t that his whole point in TLJ?

 

Kenobi never once thought Vader was redeemable at that point as he said, “He’s more machine now then man..”. Even Luke says, “I can’t kill my father!” Obiwan responds, “Then the Emperor has already won.”

Even though Yoda sort of smacks him down in TLJ to knock some sense in him, Luke is the only one in these films to ever think outside the box, until Kylo says to burn the whole thing down.

People who say that the ST is too similar to the OT are right but that’s sort of the theme as ‘those who don’t follow history are doomed to repeat it.” Every character in the 9 movies keeps doing the same things, yet the galaxy always finds its way to war again. Luke atleast thought differently in the OT and ST that the establishment way of thinking ain’t working.

That’s just my take but I totally get if someone sees the 9 movies differently as that’s sort of the beauty of the films.

 

I do wonder if that’s where Carrie Fisher would have been a bigger part of that plot point for Episode 9 had she survived in real life. They definitely set Kylo up to be conflicted by not killing his mom in TLJ.

 

My opinion is that Luke, or anyone for that matter, should not kill anyone else because of a vision of evil deeds in the future by that person. Use that knowledge to steer them away from that path. Use that vision to make sure that those events don't happen by some other means. Killing someone who hasn't actually done those things is just murder.

 

Thinking about it and doing it are two different things. I don't really get why people won't allow Luke to make mistakes or be human. For some Luke is on some high pedestal and can't be human. He's not a God.

Everyone has fleeting thoughts or moments. But Luke failed alot and that's what makes him great. In that moment he didn't know what to do, but he didn't kill Ben, or really wanted to. He was just scared.

 

Because in some post-ROTJ content he was essentially a god-lite type character.
And it was that way for many years and people grew accustomed to it.

 

People got spoiled. But I didn't read the EU.

 

I remember reading one in the 90s and just thinking I was good with the movies and never went back to it.

 

I think that especially in mythological stories like Star Wars, the Moral Victory is something that really can't be overlooked. Even when it means more casualties might occur, if what makes us human is lost in the process then we've already lost.

I don't really think that stuff like the Trolley Problem is all that useful in everyday life, but even less so in fiction. Can you really measure Resistance soldier lives against the Hosnian System, against the casualties of another potential war? How? However, I suppose that's kind of the presupposition this question makes, so in this case maybe it's not fair to avoid it.

I guess there are two different ways to look at it, through that lens- what Luke sensed in the moment, and what we know in hindsight.

In the moment, Luke absolutely should not have struck Kylo down. He should have realized the child was lost (as he and his father both would sympathize with) and needed help.

In hindsight... well, what can we even say? Kylo wouldn't have been the asset to the First Order that he was, but he also wouldn't have caused the instability to the First Order and had the connection that Rey that he did. Would he still have killed Snoke? In the grand scheme of things, does that even matter? Would he have missed his connection with Rey, and what would that mean? He's so intimately tied to the whole trilogy that removing him kind of unravels everything we know about what happens from the moment the yellow text fades into space in The Force Awakens. Yet, he's also so removed from the entirety of the First Order that his absence likely means quite little.

So no, I don't think in either case Kylo should've been struck down.

After all, much like in the Lord of the Rings, a Moral Victory can also have its own tangible rewards as well.

 

As the Force derives from all living things, this may be some form some form of emotional resonance either external or internal. When Luke felt the darkness in Ben, is this actually the case or is this a subconscious projection of Luke's own fears about his bloodline, his guilt about the death of his father and a whole bunch of other messy emotions? If so, any 'darkness' at that time would have been Luke's and not the boy's.

I am saying this as so much of the Force seems to be based on perception but at the same time, we don't know what emotions, biases and other psychological factors can have the potential to affect this perception.

Sadly, as soon as Ben saw Luke's lightsaber descending towards his throat, any trust in his master was shattered and this vulnerability was exploited by Snoke. Luke succeeded in only creating the very thing he feared and the realisation that the darkness that had polluted his father and dwelt in him was not defeated but waiting silently below the surface, for that one moment.

When Ben became Kylo, Luke's doubts and self castigation were magnified manifold. Every act of kindness he had performed undone with each atrocity that his nephew commits. Acts that he feels ultimately responsible for. And in a sense, he was.

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 21, 2020, Original Post Date: Feb 21, 2020 ---

Finally, someone who gets it

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 21, 2020 ---

Bit unfair to say spoilt. I would say that the EU gave them a certain expectation of the character and this vision was shattered by this new interpretation.